Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: Where there's so many people that could care less about their spiritual walk with the Lord and being obedient to God's word, but they sure care about their financial portfolio and their house and their job and all that stuff. It's what was happening in Haggai's time, and God caught up with them and said, "You guys are failing in this." But sadly, this is exactly where we are at.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador acknowledging a familiar caution for believers to beware of worldly distractions.

Brett Meador: You see, this is the warning. When you get your fancy houses and everything, don't forget the Lord.

Guest (Male): The Lord commanded the people of Jerusalem to begin rebuilding the temple, but they were too busy with their own homes to obey God's command. However, Pastor Brett Meador notes in today's word that as the prophet Haggai gave them charge to change, they reset their priorities and began this important construction project with significant prophetic implications to follow.

Brett Meador: There's a story of the woman at the Super Bowl with an empty seat next door. And the guy in the next seat over was kind of shocked to see an empty seat at the Super Bowl. So he said, "Do you know whose seat that is?" "Oh, that's my husband's seat." "Where is he?" "Oh, he passed away." He said, "I'm so sorry."

But the curiosity kind of got the guy. "Didn't you have any family member that could come and take the seat?" She said, "Yeah." "Why didn't they come and take it?" She said, "Beats me. They insisted on going to the funeral instead." Ouch.

Priorities can very easily be put out of whack. If you're not careful in life, it's amazing how we can do that to ourselves. We get our priorities tweaked and twisted, and things that we think are so important. Sometimes it's helpful to step back and say, "Lord, would you reprioritize our lives?" And that's really what the book of Haggai is about.

The children of Israel had lost sight of the proper priorities, and so the prophet Haggai comes along with a word to the wise and a challenge to the people. And it had to do with the temple and temple worship and that season of time where the children of Israel had threats and their temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians. Now it's time for them to rebuild the temple.

And it took a little bit of a lighting of a fire under the children of Israel to get them going to do the work of the temple. It's interesting because when our priorities are out of whack, sometimes the Lord has to use means that can be kind of brutal to get us back onto what matters. It's amazing what will reset your priorities.

I've noticed, and I've been around church people and church life a lot, but I'll tell you, there's nothing like a funeral that will change your priorities. Have you ever been to a funeral, especially if it's a loved one, someone who's really close to you? It's amazing how you can almost start to think, "Nothing really else matters other than your relationship with the Lord. Heaven and hell. Are you ready to go? Do you know where you're going?"

And I've found that memorial services and funerals are a good time to present the gospel just because when you do a memorial service and you see a person at the end of their life and what it was all about, it can seem either really shallow and kind of embarrassing, or it can seem really weighty and eternal. And that's the question you might want to ask yourself: What eternal value does your life hold today?

Because I've done funerals where, "Boy, that guy, man, he could tie a fly like no other. He spent all his time on Sunday mornings tying flies." Now, tying flies is great. If that's your hobby, awesome. It's amazing. But if that's all you got in life and people—that's all they say about you at the end of your life—how much of that will the fish probably care?

But most people kind of don't care that much about a lot of the things we spend our time doing—our hobbies, the things that we do for enjoyment. But when eternity's facing us, what are the things that matter most? And that's where the children of Israel are off course. They've let their priorities get on the temporal or the temporary and they have neglected the eternal.

But I'll tell you, there's some memorial services I've done where the person affected so many lives, led people to Christ, encouraged people with scripture, counseled them in godly ways, raised up godly children, raised up godly grandchildren. And they left a huge legacy that is huge and important and valuable and weighty. But the question is, where are you at? That's really what we have to ask ourselves.

Now, the reason this really is appropriate for ourselves and our life to ask the question, you said, "Brett, it's about the temple in Jerusalem. What does that have to do with us?" Well, don't forget the temple. There's a picture in the temple, and actually, there's three pictures the Bible gives us when we talk about the temple.

The first temple picture that we have is, of course, our bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19: "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own?" So this idea of your body being a temple, you can sort of superimpose Haggai and its priorities on the temple to be a question about your inner self, your inner man or human being. Is your body a temple that the Lord is at home in and dwelling at? That's a good question.

The second thing when we look at the temple, it's also not only our bodies, but it's also a type, a picture of Christ's body. Not only the body of Christ corporately as we use that term so regularly in the church, but also Christ's literal body. Remember when Jesus was there? He was on the temple mount when he said this in John chapter 2 verse 19. Jesus answered and said unto them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." He was talking about his body, which would be crucified on the cross and then raised up from the grave.

But then also the temple, not as much of a picture, but it literally was a place of worship. The temple's a place where God is worshipped. And that's true in your body, in Christ's body, at a place of worship. They should all be temples where worship ascends. So when we're studying this book of Haggai, make sure we're keeping the back of our minds that the temple is a picture of these three main things all throughout scripture.

So the problem of Haggai's time was keeping their priority straight specifically concerning the temple. They were more focused on their own homes and their own personal comfort, and they were worried more about just how their houses looked, actually.

It's interesting, there's a study done recently of an older demographic and they asked a bunch of older folks, "If you could do things over again, what would you do differently?" And it's interesting, the main three items they came away with with an older crowd. They said they would reflect more—a little more reflection on who they were, what they were doing, all that. But number two, they would risk more as it turns out. And then thirdly, they would do something that would live on long after they were gone, something that would sort of leave something lasting and what have you.

It's interesting how much time we spend in our lives doing stuff. There's studies that have been done on this and the most of your time other than being awake, you spend in bed. 33 years of your life on the average, if you live to be 79 years old on average, you'll spend 33 years in bed. Can I just suggest: get a good mattress. If you spend that much time, you should probably be sure and have a good mattress. If you're going to invest in something, that might be a good thing to think about—mattress. I'm not a mattress salesman, but just saying.

33 years in bed. You'll spend 14 years and four months working at work, which is quite a bit less than sleeping as it turns out. But some of you guys do both at the same time. 11 years, four months with screen time. 11 years, four months screen time. That's a long time. Eight years, four months of television. So screen time is your iPhone and your iPad and stuff like that. But just watching TV, eight years, four months on average.

Three years of your life on average—I'm sure this has changed quite a bit—but three years on social media. I think some of our children have already done that before they're 12. But anyway, four and a half years eating food. That's definitely wrong. Six years of your life traveling, three and a half years in leisure, one and a half year exercising. Again, that probably depends on who you are.

Four years being sick in your life. That's interesting, four years being sick. Two years putting on clothes. That's a long time to put on clothes in the morning. But here was the shocker on the study: on the average of the people that they polled and tested and all that, half of a year of their life would be average spent on practicing people's faith. Just a half a year.

It's amazing when you think about four years of being sick or two years of putting on clothes. You spend four more times putting on clothes than you do spending seeking the Lord and exercising your faith. That's on the average. But the question you might ask in this life where you've been given a certain amount of time, how are you spending that time? Are we spending our time wisely and do we have our priorities straight?

That's where the prophet Haggai comes on the scene during the time of Ezra and Zerubbabel. And really he's going to say something here that's very much the same thing we read in Ezra, the book of Ezra. And you might say, "Well, Brett, if Ezra says the same thing that Haggai says, why should we have the book of Haggai?" Ezra is the nuts and bolts of the story, sort of the narrative of the story, where Haggai kind of focuses on the concept of their priorities as it related to the temple.

And so the concept—something we might have missed in the book of Ezra—Haggai gives us the exact days that he's writing and he gets very detailed in his prophecy time. But then he gets very philosophical about why they should be given to the building of the temple. And so Haggai focuses on that more than Ezra. But Ezra and Haggai go hand in hand, those two books, just FYI. It's kind of fun to read the book of Ezra and then read the book of Haggai because they're so linked and all that.

The book of Haggai comes with four major sections where the word of the Lord comes to Haggai. Four different times. And you might delineate these times because he does to months of the year. He says so in this first one, we're going to see the word one from the Lord is from September. He even gives us the year and everything when this word came to Haggai. But he says, "So I got a word in September, I got a word in October, I got a word in December." That's the way he delineates his words from the Lord. So that's what we'll do.

So the first word of the Lord is here in chapter 1, verse 1. And we're going to see this first section of Haggai: the charge that Haggai makes or levels toward the children of Israel. So verses 1 through 11 is the charge that he makes. And then we'll see the change in verses 12 through 15 in chapter 1. So first, the charge. It says in verse 1:

"In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways."

The word on the street was, "We don't need to build the temple. We can do that later. We got all kinds of time to build the temple. So now is not the time," in verse 2, to build the house of the Lord. But Haggai says now is the time. "You guys dwell in your ceiled houses."

What's the word "ceiled" in the King James? It's a word that we might call wainscoting or shiplap or whatever covers a wall in its original structure. Now, by the way, in Bible times, people were really into this, especially in the fancy houses. They had saunas and jacuzzis and stuff like that in their houses.

But you can see these fresco-type painting surfaces, they'd plaster and paint, and it's amazing how those have lasted for a couple thousand years. That's what the Bible talks about here when Haggai says, "You guys have your fancy houses that are covered with all these fancy ornate coverings, but the temple just sits there in ruin." That's the charge that is leveled here at the people. And he says, "Man, what have you? You got your house all fancy while the house of God lies in waste. Therefore consider your ways. Consider your ways."

Let's consider the word "consider" just for a second. The word "consider," if you look it up in Webster's, it means to think very carefully, number one definition. But number two, to think about and be drawn toward. That is specifically consider taking a course of action. And that's the word. And the Hebrew word matches up with this English word nicely, just that he's really saying, "You guys need to do something about this and think through it. Because if you don't think about it, out of sight, out of mind. If you don't think about it, you're not caring about something that actually matters. You live comfortably, but my house lies in waste." This was the heart of the Lord for the people of Israel at that time.

You know, it's interesting, I'm kind of glad we don't still do temple worship as they did in those days. Can you imagine us having to bring our lamb from our barnyard that's spotless and bring it to have it slaughtered there at the temple and that priest having you put your hand on the head of the lamb and then the priest's hands on the altar and then the priest slits the throat of the lamb? You'd be a part of all that stuff. And this was the sacrifice for sin.

Can you imagine on our Wednesday Bible study, "Yeah, come on in. All the sheep over there and we'll be doing that over there and then we'll finally get to the Bible study once we've done all our sacrificing." I'm glad that we're no longer under that temple worship that they had in those days. But you can almost wonder maybe the people were like, "Yeah, maybe we don't want to get back to all that, the rigamarole of being a part of the temple and the temple worship."

So while these people weren't building the temple, we need to make sure that we're doing what the Lord asks us to do and not neglecting the gathering of the church. In some ways you can correlate the temple in Jerusalem with what the church is doing—the gathering, the place of meeting. And you guys know Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."

So it's interesting, as Christians by the way get older, I've noticed they also get jaded toward the things of the Lord. Have you seen the way that is in your own heart where the older you get you go, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I've been to every Bible study in my life. I already know all the book of Haggai and I've been through this and that." And you can start having this attitude as an older believer.

That's kind of where these people were when it came to temple, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've done all that with the Jewish temple and sacrifice system, but who needs that? At least we have our houses and our wainscoting and our shiplap." And they were really happy about that. But the Lord is splashing a cold water on them saying, "Time to wake up. Not be jaded toward the things of the Lord."

I hope you're not jaded toward worship. Bible says, "Behold, bless ye the Lord, lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord." So lift them however you want, but it says, "Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord." That's what we're called to do as an act of worship.

But I've noticed as Christians get older, they get jaded toward things of worship. And that's kind of what's going on here with the people of Haggai's time. Now, don't forget that these are the things that the church continued. And let's just go over this real quick.

The apostle's doctrine, that was teaching the Bible. And then you're not suppose to neglect fellowship. This is where if you're one of those who says, "I like to be in the woods, that's my church," that's just ridiculous. If you believe that, the woods are not the church. The church is people. It's not a building. It's gathering together and having fellowship with other believers. "Well, I'm not into fellowship." Then you're not into what God told you to do.

And number three, the breaking of bread. The breaking of bread is probably mostly communion, you're going to the table of the Lord, but it's also having meals together. And we like to encourage people to get together after services and go out and grab a coffee or have people over to your house for dinner. So the breaking of bread just is such a great thing to contribute to fellowship as it relates to the meals. That's part of it, communion, but also having meals together.

And then the fourth one is prayer. That prayer be a part of the church. We do that corporately and then we also encourage your own personal prayer and small prayer groups. These are things that the church should be given to.

So all that to say, don't make up excuses about why you don't want to do any of these things. That's where the children of Israel were when it came to the building of the temple. And I think that's something that we need to kind of press through and fight through.

But I need you to see the Lord predicted that this would happen and he warned about it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years earlier. And I want to point that out before we read on. It's Deuteronomy chapter 8, verses 11 through 14. Listen to what the Lord said through Moses about when they would go into the promised land. Check this out.

It says, "Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up," that's pridefulness by the way. "Thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."

You see, this is the warning. When you get your fancy houses and everything, don't forget the Lord. What a somber word hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago before the people of Haggai were even around. But that's exactly where they were at. But sadly, this is exactly where we are at, thousands of years later, where there's so many people that could care less about their spiritual walk with the Lord and being obedient to God's word, but they sure care about their financial portfolio and their house and their job and all that stuff. It's what was happening in Haggai's time and God caught up with them and said, "You guys are failing in this."

By the way, in this story in Haggai, what made the people stop building the temple? Because they did start it, but it wasn't finished. What made them stop is an interesting question. I'd like to read to you a few scriptures in Ezra. Remember, these two books go hand in hand. But listen, these are the reasons they stopped building.

Ezra 4, verses 1 through 6 says this. It says, "Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel; Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as you do." These are the enemies saying, "Hey, can we help? We want to seek your God just like you." Yeah, right.

"And we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us."

So they spotted it out. They knew the enemies were wanting to get in there to help them so that they could defeat them. And so they said, "Get out. We don't want you to be a part of our building project."

Well, then if you fast forward to Ezra chapter 4, verse 11, listen to this. So then they wrote a letter, and this went to Artaxerxes, who was meanwhile back in the Medo-Persian empire. Basically it said, "Thy servants the men on this side the river. Be it known unto the king, that the Jews which came up from thee to us are come unto Jerusalem, building the rebellious and the bad city, and have set up the walls thereof, and joined the foundations. Be it known now unto the king, that, if this city be builded, and the walls set up again, then will they not pay toll, tribute, or custom, and so thou shalt endamage the revenue of the kings."

A false letter was written to King Artaxerxes back at the Medo-Persians. Remember, they were given the commandment to go and rebuild and restore. So they were doing that, but the letter by these bad guys said, "These guys are doing this in rebellion. They want to go and fight you guys. That's why they're building their walls and their temple."

Now, when the letter got to King Artaxerxes in Ezra chapter 4, verse 23 and 24, it says, "Now when the copy of king Artaxerxes' letter was read before Rehum, and Shimshai the scribe, and their companions, they went up in haste to Jerusalem unto the Jews, and made them to cease by force and power. Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia."

You see, Ezra tells us all the details. Why'd they stop building? Because of fear. The government. And there was lies about what they were doing. And so they said, "Man, we don't want to be in trouble with Artaxerxes way back in the Babylonian area." And so they just stopped. And the building ceased.

And then verse 1 of chapter 5 of Ezra, "Then the prophets Haggai and the prophet Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the Lord God of Israel, even unto them." So after they stopped building, that's where Haggai and Zechariah come in to say, "Guys, gotta start building again." But they were afraid because of the government coming down on their head. This is an interesting thing because I think there's still churches today that are afraid of the government, and they're not willing to do that which God's called us to do. "Well, they told us we couldn't do it." I'm concerned about that. I'm saddened by that.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador noting how the challenges God's people faced doing his work in the time of Haggai strike a familiar tone for believers today in service to the Lord. And we're only partway through this study of Haggai on today's word. I invite you stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me to share some comforting words from our Savior.

But first, our teacher Brett Meador is the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church just outside of Portland, Oregon. Each day, Pastor Brett will bring you a verse-by-verse study of God's word. If you've missed any portion of our time today, you can find all of his messages online at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com.

All right, Pastor Brett is joined me. You know, for a person listening right now who's going through a difficult time in life, be it a health issue, financial, or even a hard time with someone close to them, I know Jesus gave some encouraging words to us in scripture. Brett, can you share some of those with us?

Brett Meador: I would love to, Kurt. You know, Jesus said so many things. I think some of my favorites personally are John 14:1: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me." I think that Jesus mentioned that to the disciples in a very dark and troubling time for them. And so if you're going through those times, you can hear the word of Jesus there. Don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in Jesus that he's there, that he's going to take care of things.

And also Matthew chapter 11, there's that great reminder, Jesus, I think these words are greatly comforting: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I love that Jesus doesn't say, "Figure it out first, good luck," but he invites us, "Come unto me." There's so much that I find there to just be real. You just go to Christ and he'll bear that burden, whatever it is that you're trying to bear.

I love that the Lord never leaves us or forsakes us, that Jesus is with you. Your trial is real, your difficulties are real, but Jesus is even more real and powerful than we could ever imagine. And I think those words that Jesus is able to speak to us, he calms the storm. I love during the storm when Jesus said the disciples were toiling and thinking they were going to drown, but Jesus said, "Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid." And I think those are the words that I would think of if I'm in troubled times.

Kurt: Oh, that is very encouraging. Thank you, Pastor Brett. And if you'd like more information about Today's Word Radio or Pastor Brett Meador, just go to todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. Well next time, Pastor Brett will show us through the prophet Haggai's writings not only of important historical and prophetic lessons to the people of Israel, but how we should respond by living for the Lord. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.